Wordless Stories, Transient Tales and Text as a Loose Part

Alistair Bryce-CleggABC Does A Blog, Child Initiated Learning, Continuous Provision, Creativity, Talk, Transient Art6 Comments

This week the  blog has been written for me by  Clare Thompson. Clare is an illustrator and visual story teller, and like me, is based up here in the North West of England. She uses a mixture of handmade techniques and digital media to create pieces of art that also translate into picture books for children.  You might have seen Clare’s work on my Facebook and Instagram pages as from 2016 she has been working with Naturally Creative Early Years Consultancy and has created books like Junk DNA that I often see popping up in people’s Loose Parts and Transient Art Areas. I have made the images nice and big in the blog this week so that we can really … Read More

Planning for Continuous Provision

Alistair Bryce-CleggContinuous Provision, Uncategorized24 Comments

Whether you are referring to ‘Continuous Provision’ as an environment, a group of resources or a period of time. The ethos and the aspiration are exactly the same. Well planned Continuous Provision can be an absolute gift when it comes to raising the attainment of children through active learning and high level engagement. Badly planned Continuous Provision can also be a curse that promotes low level engagement and low level attainment – so what is the secret of good CP? Continuous Provision is NOT just the resources that you have out all of the time. It needs to support adults in their teaching and interactions with children, allow children to consolidate and rehearse what they know, but it s also … Read More

(At Least) 50 Fantastic Ideas To Try At Home…Can You Help?

Alistair Bryce-CleggBoys Learning, Child Initiated Learning, construction, Continuous Provision, Creativity, Environment, Malleable Materials, Mark Making, mathematics, Messy Play, Mud Kitchen, Music, Outdoors, Play, Water Play44 Comments

As more people are self-isolating and schools and childcare settings across the world are closing, we thought we would contribute to easing the burden by providing another place you can direct parent’s /carers to for support. We are part of a wonderful, international community of Early Years practitioners who have a wealth of knowledge and a HUGE bank of ideas and activities. So, let’s gather together and share them! As a starting point I am going to use my blog to share activities that can fairly easily be done at home. I’ll gather a collection of ideas each week and post them on the website – with links from social media. If you would like to contribute please email me … Read More

Continuous Provision in Key Stage One Part 3 – Outcomes

Alistair Bryce-CleggBoys Learning, Child Initiated Learning, Continuous Provision, Environment, Transition, Writing9 Comments

I am really pleased that Jo from St John’s C of E Primary has agreed to write me a third blog post. You can find the others here and here. It is great to see a play based approach to learning having such a positive impact. My third blog leads to the subject I am most frequently asked about. A subject which I tend to avoid as it is often steered towards data, data, data…I like to ‘practise what I preach’; value the journey rather than the outcome’, but  that is not to say that the children ‘s progress and ultimate end of Key Stage assessments are not too far from our minds as we plan the provision. Outcomes, in the … Read More